


Potion of Intent

by MayLaNee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Essays, Gen, Homework, Magic, Malfoy, Potions, Potions Master Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayLaNee/pseuds/MayLaNee
Summary: Draco had to write an essay for Potions class in 1992. Yes, he was twelve, so it's rather innocent. Oneshot. Part of an AU RP titled 'In Living Memory' with Blanxious13.
Kudos: 4
Collections: In Living Memory





	Potion of Intent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blanxious13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanxious13/gifts).



Desired Imaginary Potion - Potions homework September 4 1992 Draco Malfoy 

Potion of Intent

Currently there is no potion that shows intent which means that there is something missing in the world.  
Maybe ‘missing’ is not the right word. What I mean is that there is something hidden in people and it does not always come out when and how it should.

For the longest time people have been trying to measure and control intent. 

The ancient Egyptians believed that when a person died the soul would not remember who they were, so their tombs were filled with things to remind them of who they were during their lifetime. Then after that the soul would be guided by the God Anubis to the Hall of Truth and there would be other Gods and there would be Forty-Two Judges, and then one’s heart would be weighed against the Feather of Truth. If one did only good things then their heart would be lighter than a feather and they would be allowed into the afterlife. But it is interesting that the Ancient Egyptians say that a soul would not remember, but still judge them by the actions that are not remembered.  
This is unfair.  
So it makes far more sense that they measure what the heart meant, so they know its intent and from there it would be fair to judge them. 

The Ancient Egyptians were not the only people who clearly thought intentions were very important. 

According to Islam, everybody has an angel recording a person’s good deeds on their right shoulder and an angel on the left shoulder recording a person’s bad deeds. The lists are kept and the right angel of good things is nicer than the left one, so when a person does something bad it tells the bad angel to wait some hours before writing it down. (Which already implies that it is paying attention to whether the person would think badly of their own action, which means they might look at whether the person meant it or not, which already prioritises intentions.)  
Then when a person dies, the lists are compared, a conclusion is drawn and the person in question can read why he is going to heaven or hell. 

But a person’s beliefs and actions are written up as if they are the same thing. 

Any person with a mind knows that sometimes you believe things because you do not know any better and not because you are bad. So it does not make sense. To illustrate this please consider us here in Britain. We can think to ourselves: “Well, rain is normal. Everybody knows what it is like to have rain come down.” But a person in Egypt has perhaps never seen rain so they would think “The sky never cries, water comes from below.” So now both the British person and the Egyptian person would have their left side angel write them up for being bad after a few hours of thinking that. That would just be stupid. 

Clearly what they meant to do was write down what the British and the Egyptian person were intending to do, which is judge what they know by the measures they have. 

Now I have shown enough how this Potion of Intent is relevant and that very old cultures have centred their entire beliefs on it for the longest time, I will now dedicate space to what the potion would actually do.

When a person consumes the Potion of Intent it will be clear what the person means. 

This can be different every time of course. Let me give an example. If somebody wants to surprise somebody else with a gift, and it turns out the gift accidentally kills them, now there is a big problem. But if the gift giver could take a Potion of Intent and then explain themselves, everybody there would see that they were just trying to do something nice. The gift giver would not be sentenced for what they meant to do. They could still be punished for giving very stupid gifts but they would not be sent to Azkaban for murder, which is good because they never meant to hurt anyone. 

Likewise if you give the Potion of Intent to a person of whom you are not sure whether you should trust them or not, you could then talk to them after you have administered it to them. Now if you ask them “did you mind this event or other” they would say something such as “Oh of course not.”  
But because of the potion you would know that they mean “I just want to keep this conversation brief because it is uninteresting to me and the event was really stupid but you insist on pestering me on it so this is the quickest way to be rid of you.” 

It is far more useful than Veritaserum because Veritaserum just shows the cold hard truth which does not always say a lot of useful things, since you then still do not know anybody’s intention or whether there is another way to interpret their answers. The drinker of the Potion of Intent would not say something other than they would have said without the Potion, it is just that what is inside of them would radiate out and would be clear for all around them to know.

It would not just work with words. If somebody drank the Potion of Intent and then raised their hand, everyone could see that they mean to just adjust their sleeve or get rid of a cramp rather than to strike somebody, for example. 

In conclusion in this essay I have shown that the entire world really wants a Potion of Intent and that it would be a very good idea to have it created because if people could see what people were intending then everything would be easier, there would be no misunderstandings anymore and it would help everybody which is very noble.


End file.
